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IP259 | Self as Matisse
If Matisse lived in this day and age, he would surely have approved of Martin’s choice of film. The purple and turquoise tinges could be lifted straight from his portrait of André Derain.
These were the wild and crazy colours that in 1905 you could only see in paintings by a select group of Parisian artists. You can try to see like them if you half close your eyes and focus on the liminal spaces between light and shade. These new ways with light led to Matisse and Derain being labelled “Fauves”. They were the wild beasts of an art world that wasn’t quite ready for turquoise shadows around the jawline of a grown man, or the curved figure of a bathing nude.
Martin’s suit is pure Matisse. You can imagine the softness that only comes with age. The way it forms into soft folds rather than creases at the knee and elbow.
And though Matisse isn’t known for painting hats, there is one example that comes to mind. Woman in a Hat, was not just any woman, she was Madame Matisse. And this was one of the paintings described as “A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public”. One of the wild beast paintings that seems so unshocking now but at the time caused more than a small kerfuffle.
Not afraid of taking risks with wild use of unpredictable colours, this is how Martin does Matisse. And if Matisse lived today I hope he would be happy to return the compliment and pose for a photo taken on purple and turquoise film.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Debra Broughton and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
